The healthcare industry is undergoing massive digital transformation across points of care from the hospital to the home. Indeed, connective care advances such as remote patient monitoring (RPM) for chronic conditions like hypertension and diabetes, as well as personal emergency response systems (PERS), smart medication dispensers and AI-enabled virtual health assistants are enhancing care at home, as well as enabling seniors to remain in their homes for longer, a term called “aging in place.”
More than 75% of consumers said they are willing to get in-home care for anything ranging from a well visit to chronic disease management, according to PwC’s Health Research Institute.
RPM technology combined with an AI virtual health assistant, for example, is generating statistically significant patient results from large-scale organizations to small independent practices. Sweetwater Medical Associates, a small independent practice in Sugarland, Texas, has improved patient adherence and clinical health metrics with AI-enabled RPM. The clinic has seen improvements in patients’ health metrics over 180 days, including an average blood pressure reduction of 5.80mmHg for patients with hypertension, and for patients with obesity, a mean w********** of 3.45 lbs.
For patients, AI-enabled RPM acts as an extension of the practice by providing reminders and positive feedback to ensure they perform regular readings and stay adherent, which also creates a sense of personal accountability. By regularly measuring key vital signs, patients are often more motivated to make healthier decisions, which can result in improved health metrics.
Here are additional benefits of connective care technology:
Improving medication adherence
Patients fail to adhere to their medication plans for a wide variety of reasons, ranging from common forgetfulness to confusion about whether they took their pills, fear of potentially harmful side effects, the high cost of their prescriptions, and mistrust of their clinicians. With RPM technology, providers can remain apprised of patients’ vital signs, enabling them to quickly intervene to keep the patient on track with their care plan.
Streamlining b****** and reimbursement
Leading RPM solutions make b****** more efficient through automated charge drafts, monitoring time tracking, and easy access to claims data for b****** substantiation. The technology eases the burden of back-office tasks, freeing up clinical team members for direct patient care.
Surfacing social determinants of health (SDoH) insights
An RPM solution combined with an AI-virtual health assistant can facilitate the collection of data related to SDoH, such as information pertaining to housing, food insecurity/nutrition, as well as transportation and access to care through means of a patient survey. With a clearer picture of the non-medical challenges patients are facing, healthcare organizations and providers can connect patients to community-based organizations to address these challenges, which can negatively impact an individual’s health.
The home as a site of care will only continue to take hold. Through connective care technology, healthcare organizations can operate more efficiently, reduce the burden on clinical staff, better support the care continuum, and deliver greater insights from the home that enable more preventative patient care and enhanced health outcomes.
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